The program formally started in March and also has financial support from the Queensland government as part of its Advance Queensland Innovation Partnerships program.

The research project aims to find solutions to the perennial problem of estimating the position of vehicles in an underground environment.

The intended outcome of the project is the equivalent of GPS for an underground environment without the requirement for significant infrastructure installed in the mine.

One aim is to develop a cost-effective, reliable, camera-based positioning system for locating and tracking underground mining vehicles with a 1m accuracy.

Another is to develop a sophisticated multi-sensor system that provides centimetre accurate positioning to aid the automation of mine vehicles.

Project leader QUT associate professor Michael Milford said knowing where everything was on a mine site was key to optimising how that site operated, improving safety and productivity.

“We believe that we can develop next-generation positioning technologies that can be deployed throughout the fleets of underground mining vehicles all around the world,” he said.

The project will leverage research and learnings already acquired in other industries through the work undertaken by the Australian Centre for Robotic Vision at QUT.

That centre is responsible for an underwater robot that culls crown of thorns starfish as well as an agricultural robot that can distinguish between weeds and crops.

Mining3 CEO professor Paul Lever said the partnership was an effective model for a major development in the advancement of autonomous mining technology.

“QUT and Mining3 provide leading research capability in this area and Caterpillar delivers the experience, product development capability and local and global challenges required to translate research into a product that can be distributed around the mining world,” he said.

QUT and Caterpillar are members of Mining3.